Yellow (George Weasley)

34 - Extendable Ears

"Really? The two of you couldn't dry yourselves off?" I scoffed at the twins. We were sat in a dusty spare room at 12 Grimmauld Place waiting for Harry's arrival.

"I can never remember the charm." Fred shrugged.

I rolled my eyes, muttering the incantation and drying the twin boys' hair. Ginny shook her head from where she was sat in the corner, attempting to read one of the musty old books she had pulled off the shelf. There wasn't much to do here. Fred and George had mostly busied themselves with their joke shop, brainstorming new ideas and testing out a few. Ginny and I were not willing to puke, faint, or get nose bleeds, so we entertained ourselves with some of the weird things we found around the house.

We had arrived not too long ago, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley instantly heading to the kitchen to talk with Sirius Black. Apparently this place had been his childhood home and he was now hiding out here, and opening it up for Order of the Phoenix meetings of course. The Black family house elf, Kreacher, had shooed us right upstairs. He had some particularly..colorful..words to say to me about my Muggle decent. I can't imagine what he'll say when he sees Hermione. Sirius apologized to me in advance for his behavior. I had never properly met him until now. Part of me felt like I should thank him for saving me from that unwanted kiss years ago, but I think he knows.

From the very minimal information I could get from the twins, The Order has been meeting once again since Cedric's death. Over the summer, members had taken turns watching Harry. Apparently the sketchy man in charge of watching him today disapparated, so Harry was left to fend for himself when a pair of Dementors showed up. Naturally he used magic to save himself and his cousin, but he's now been expelled from Hogwarts.

The voices we heard from where Ron and Hermione were in the room just next to ours seemed to get louder, until we could hear a familiar voice practically screaming. "I wonder if that's Har-" Before I could finish my sentence, Fred and George had apparated out of the room. The twins were clearly very happy they had passed their Apparation test.

"They act like we don't have legs!" I groaned, standing up and simply walking a door over. Sure enough both boys were sat behind a very tired looking Harry Potter. I hated seeing how thin and unkempt he looked after just a month with those Dursley's.

I smiled at Harry as I entered the room before walking back and sitting on the bed with the twins. I lightly smacked George on the back of the head but he just laughed before continuing what they were saying.

"If you're all done shouting..." George looked back and forth at the others in the room, a devious smile already spreading across his face.

"Do you wanna hear something a little more interesting?" Fred rose his eyebrows with an identical smile.

"Here we go." I muttered.

"Our newest invention..." Fred pulled the device out of his pocket. "Extendable Ears."

We all went out into the hallway as Fred slowly dropped the ear down the stairwell and right outside the door where the adults were meeting. The voices were a little muffled but the main topic, of course, seemed to be Harry. Dumbledore was speaking quietly on the subject, almost as if he anticipated being spied on. I'm a little surprised to have heard Snape's voice. I wouldn't expect him to be a member of the Order being the head of Slytherin house, but I'm relieved to know he's on the good side.

"Hey, Ginny." Harry smiled as she came out of our room to join us. Downstairs, everyone began to argue about whether or not Harry should be told about all that's going on. Mrs. Weasley and Sirius seemed to be especially heated.

Just as things were getting interesting, Hermione's cat Crookshanks strode into the room. His orange bottlebrush tail flicked back and forth while he surveyed the new area. His head cocked as his eyes settled on the dangling ear. "Don't you dare! Bad Crookshanks!" Hermione hissed when the cat reached out a paw to bat at the Weasley invention.